The Obelisk Questionnaire: Mike Lang of Seismic
The Obelisk Questionnaire is a series of open questions intended to give the answerer an opportunity to explore these ideas and stories from their life as deeply as they choose. Answers can be short or long, and that reveals something in itself, but the most important factor is honesty.
Based on the Proust Questionnaire, the goal over time is to show a diverse range of perspectives as those who take part bring their own points of view to answering the same questions. To see all The Obelisk Questionnaire posts, click here.
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The Obelisk Questionnaire: Mike Lang of Seismic
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How do you define what you do and how did you come to do it?
We call ourselves instrumental doom from Philadelphia. Being an instrumental band is a major piece of our identity and it affects how we think about songwriting and how we each approach playing in this band. We base a lot of what we do in doom, but we draw on other influences like sludge, hardcore, post-rock, stoner, drone, and progressive music from across the spectrum of music and find ways to incorporate those into our sound.
Ken Miller (Bass), Anthony Mariano (Guitar), and I, (Mike Lang – Drums) started jamming in 2018. Initially, we had thought about searching for a vocalist, but we’d all seen too many otherwise-promising bands ruined by bad vocals. We made the decision early on to be instrumental and have ultimately enjoyed the challenge of placing the instruments themselves front and center. As we were working on our first EP, which we released during the pandemic, we realized that in order achieve the layers we were recording in the studio onstage, we would need another guitarist. For this, we enlisted Tommy McEwan, Ken’s former bandmate from Eaten Alive (RIP).
For the past year-and-a-half, we’ve been busy writing and recording our upcoming full-length. More progressive and broader in scope than our first EP, it centers around a half-hour-long song called “The Time Machine”. We started playing with ideas that would be the seed of “The Time Machine” in some of our initial practices and really developed it out in detail during long writing sessions during the pandemic. We recorded a demo of it, which we released in January.
Describe your first musical memory.
All of us in Seismic are life-long musicians and concertgoers, so I’m sure we’d each have our own answer to this question. I’ll cite the Ufomammut show at Johnny Brenda’s as our first collective musical memory though, as it was the first time that Anthony, Ken and I were all in the same place at the same time. Separately, we were discussing plans to start a band and at the show we solidified those plans. Of course, Ufomammut put on a fantastic, deafening show full of expansive psychedelic spacescapes.
Describe your best musical memory to date.
As a band, our best musical memory would be our recent “The Time Machine” demo release show.
When we were writing our first EP, there were parts and ideas that surpassed our vision for the first release and got shelved. We revisited those parts after releasing the EP and spent the better part of the last three years developing them into a long-form composition. It was a long and involved process.
We decided to demo the song before committing it to the full-length that we’re currently working on. We recorded the drums at Coffee Haus Studio in Freehold, NJ, where we recorded our first EP, and recorded all the guitars and bass at Anthony’s home studio. Anthony did all the mixing and mastering.
Ken created some great art for the song and put a lot into making a cool physical release. We invited some excellent local bands we’re friends with to play and really celebrated the culmination of years of work by debuting the entire half-hour long song live that night. I think we were all proud of it and thought it was one of the best shows any of us had played.
Where do you feel artistic progression leads?
I think it’s much less about leading to a specific destination than the lifelong journey that artistic progression offers. There’s always another hill to climb or place to push yourself. I like that this is a band that enjoys the process. We challenge each other to grow, to think about parts differently, and to improve. We’re constantly sharing new music with each other, discussing guitar pedals, giving feedback on each other’s sound. With each new set of songs that we write, we can see how far we’ve come and that’s exciting to me, even if I’m not sure where we’re ultimately going.
How do you define success?
Everything we create, we create for us. We’re not seeking outside approval or looking for greater acceptance. If we’re writing music that excites us; that we enjoy listening to, that’s success. Of course, hearing that music we’ve created connects with someone else is even more fulfilling. Hearing that someone else noticed and appreciated a little detail or maybe even thought about our music in a way that we hadn’t is always exciting. We don’t take this for granted. We consider it a privilege to be able to share the music that we create. We are fortunate to have the platform we do and to have an amazing music community here in Philadelphia that supports and inspires us.
What is something you have seen that you wish you hadn’t?
Ken and I are huge Eagles fans (Go Birds!), so we wish we hadn’t seen Jalen Hurts fumbling the ball and the Chiefs returning it for a touchdown in the second quarter of the Super Bowl this year.
Describe something you haven’t created yet that you’d like to create.
Our songs primarily emerge organically from jamming in practice. Sometimes a song manifests from a series of riffs that flow well together and things solidify really quickly. Other times songs are constructed over months and the process can be more painstaking, or we may keep experimenting with ideas long after a song’s structure is established. Either way, we’re always trying to make sure that we’re expanding our horizons and doing new things. We don’t necessarily know what that may sound like, so just continuing to create is our goal.
What do you believe is the most essential function of art?
It’s a release. It’s expression. When it’s good, it leads to some form of enlightenment.
Something non-musical that you’re looking forward to?
Though I’m going to miss DesertFest NYC for it, I’m still excited about a trip I have planned to go hiking in the Dolomites this fall. Tommy is looking forward to better weather for cycling and days of soldering electronics. Anthony and Ken are both artists. Anthony started taking graduate painting classes, and is experimenting with oil paint. Ken is a life-long painter, specializing in dark art and works in graphic design. He recently launched his website (www.violentvisual.com) and is accepting commissions. Hire him to do your next album cover.
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https://seismicdoom.bandcamp.com/
https://linktr.ee/SeismicDoom
